


every life is precious (except for my own)

by YellowMagicalGirl



Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Archie Merlin and Nari all get mentioned, Canonical Character Death, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Depressed Hisirdoux "Douxie" Casperan, Depression, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspective Angst, No beta we die like Merlin, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Series: Wizards (Tales of Arcadia), Suicidal Hisirdoux "Douxie" Casperan, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26665948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowMagicalGirl/pseuds/YellowMagicalGirl
Summary: Nine hundred years is a long time for a human to live. Eventually, Douxie got tired of it.
Relationships: Archie & Hisirdoux "Douxie" Casperan, Hisirdoux "Douxie" Casperan & Merlin (Tales of Arcadia)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 50





	every life is precious (except for my own)

Getting out of bed was hard sometimes for Douxie. Actually, it was hard all the time; he had never been a morning person but it felt like everyone around him expected for him to be one. But some days it was harder than others. He didn't want to get out of bed and go to work. He didn't want to do anything other than stare at a wall until he could go to sleep again. He was just so tired. And after so many years, didn't he deserve to be a little tired?

He was more than a little tired, though. He was very tired. And he had been for centuries. He knew there was a time when he enjoyed life. And that wasn't to say that he didn't enjoy life now, but he was always so tired. Sometimes he was so tired that he couldn't even bring himself to play a stringed instrument or practice his spells, even though the former had most of them time brought him joy and the latter was a way that he might finally make Merlin proud.

He would never make Merlin proud again. And sure, he had apparently already done so, but it's not like his master had shown it much back when Douxie had been growing up. It wasn't like Douxie _needed_ praise to thrive, but maybe he'd be a little less tired if he had been praised a little more often as a child.

Douxie considered one of his better qualities to be that he didn't give up, but that was a lie. He had given up back when he was around six hundred and fifty-seven years old. He had taken a knife to his leg. It was too shallow and too far from any arteries to do permanent damage, but it had still hurt. There had still been a lot of blood. And there was still a scar on his leg. Archie had found him before he could make a second cut or get into the tub of water that he had prepared for himself. Douxie had been able to make it look like an accident. Once he gained the privacy he had then vowed that he wouldn't intentionally kill himself. Not if there was any possible way for Archie to realize that it was a suicide. Douxie couldn't do that to his familiar. So he went through the motions. Some years were good years. Some years the only thing keeping him alive was the vow. His hope that Merlin would come back any time soon had long since dwindled.

His hope in general had long since dwindled.

And then Merlin came back. And maybe, with his master thinking Douxie was ready for a staff, Douxie would have gotten better. After all, the past year had been free of any depressive episodes that lasted more than two days. But then Merlin had died.

The Arcane Order had claimed that Douxie would die for tricking them. And dying had been the plan. It would buy his friends time. It was a way he could see Merlin again. And it was a way that Douxie could get away with dying without anyone suspecting anything. He would just be a casualty. He would be a hero who saved the world.

He had gotten his wish, his reward for saving the world. He had died a clean and heroic death. Why did he have to come back from the dead? He could have gone with Merlin and Morgana. He could have finally rested. But no, he had to worry enough about his friends, and if the Arcane Order would come after Nari, that he came back from the dead. Why couldn't he have trusted that his friends would take care of things?

It was funny, how back in the afterlife Merlin had said that Douxie thought that all life was precious. Douxie wondered if Merlin would have thought that if he had been there when Douxie tried to kill himself. Would Merlin have realized that Douxie hadn't just had an accident? Would Douxie have been depressed enough to try and take his own life if Merlin had been there for him? If Douxie had died and Merlin had lived, how long would Merlin miss his apprentice?

It would be so much easier if Douxie knew that no one would miss him when he died. But no, Douxie still had to continue to be the silent guardian of the mortal realm like he had been ever since the first time the Battle of Killahead Bridge happened for him. And even if he didn't have this duty he had to stay alive for, his friends would miss him. Archie especially would miss him. And, knowing Archie, he would blame himself for never noticing the signs that Douxie had been hiding for centuries. Douxie didn't think he could ever push Archie away harshly enough to convince himself that Archie wouldn't mourn him.

Douxie stared blankly at the wall next to his air mattress in New York. He was so tired, and yet he couldn't even bring himself to sleep right now. Archie or Nari would come to wake him up soon, telling him to get out of bed and get ready for work or make breakfast or any other thing that they supposedly needed him for.

He wondered if he could get himself hit by a car and make it look like an accident.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally Douxie's self-harm/suicide attempt was going to be used as an explanation for the scar on his hand. However, the scar looks a little more jagged than I remembered, plus he had that scar when he was living in Camelot the first time around. Therefore, I moved it to a scar that would be easily hidden by Douxie's clothing.


End file.
